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I actually posted on this thread yesterday, but I deleted when I saw it was rapidly decending into a 'lets slam challenger2 yet again'. Yawn. I mean lets ignore the fact it proved successful in combat. That never really means anything does it?

Look, Steelbeasts is a SIM. It SIMULATES. its not real life, its not real. So drawing real conclusions about how the real tank operates from a SIM is not only supremely daft, its counter intuitive. Steel beasts is a very good sim. Its not reality. So why base arguments on a simulation and not what you can find in books, or even find gunnery footage on Youtube?

Ive said my bit on ammunition before. I wont bang on about it because I know its bloody tedious and likely will be laughed at, suffice to say I think if L23 (not a charm round chaps) is wrong, then L27 has to be very wrong. This is from a 'DEFE 70.90 The effects of the new soviet tank on FSAPDS development for Chieftain and MBT80' and list figures for a prototype L23 round fired out of L11 in various conditions and tempertures. MOD own figures I may add.

Now I grant you nowhere does it talk about the effect of slope. However I personally believe it very likely they would be using nato standard estimates for these calculations. Particularly as this would have been a period when we would have been lobbying for the next Nato tank gun. (Circa 1979)

Its not exceptional I would be the first to admit. OTOH, if the 454mm figure is right, then it means we only progressed in penetrating a further 75mm in the next 20 years, despite having an interim tungsten round, a new gun, more powerful bagged charges and a DU round. If L27 (and L30 actually) was that modest an improvement, In my view it wouldnt have been introduced at all, they would have stuck with L23 and made the tank more sellable. But hey, thats just my view. Suffice to say there is something wrong somewhere if the MOD figures are correct.

Challenger2E was originally called Desert Challenger, which is why it was painted sand. It was not I believe built FOR the Greek Competition. It was built to get orders in the Middle East (presumably Kuwait and Saudi) which were not forthcoming. I think it only got entered in the greek tank competition because that was the last place it could get orders. With nobody making bagged charges for it and costing over the odds over Leopard2, it was never going to sell. It perhaps says less about that tank, than the ability of British industry in the 2000s to sell anything due to the economy overheating. A problem the Greeks latterly had as well....

Many people assume Challenger2 is slow to accelerate from the footage from Basra, but in fact Challengers there operated on USMC AVGAS, which didnt do the engine a lot of good, and slowed acceleration. Challengers in full uparmour at Bovington accelerate rather better, its not an abrams and never will be, but for its weight its good. One has to be careful talking about speed an acceleration. Centurion in theory was rather faster than Conqueror. Cross country Conqueror, despite being much heavier, turned out to be just as fast. I think they Hydrogas suspension when running across rough terrain could be highly effective.

Omani Challenger2s are similar to UK ones, except they have an grill (NBC filter?) on the side which would appear to preclude fitting side armour. Also the rear hull is totally different due to fitting of filters, and the ferry tanks I think are much higher up, almost T80 style. Functionally it should be identical to a standard line Challenger2 Circa 2002, unless they have updated it. I think they still use L23, though ive heard L28 (possibly L23A2?) was being developed for them at some point.

Incidentally, have they modded the VS580 sight in Steelbeasts to only project TI onto the commanders view when in lineup with Togs yet? C2E was the only variant built with full TI in the CIV.

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I actually posted on this thread yesterday, but I deleted when I saw it was rapidly decending into a 'lets slam challenger2 yet again'. .

Hi Stuart

Very helpful post - thank you.

It certainly wasn't my intention to overly criticise the Challenger. All my references were to the simulated version in SB; I have no knowledge whatsoever of the Challenger's performance in RL other than videos. But as it is UKA's tank of choice, we need to be particularly aware of both its strengths and weaknesses.

When Agiel said that he thought that any tank hoping to penetrate the CR2's frontal armour would have to get so close that it was in dire danger itself, I thought I would point out that in our experience a Leo 2A5 firing the right ammo would normaly win a shoot out with a Challenger at 2.5km as the Leo stands a much better chance of a FIRST ROUND kill than the Chally. This appears to be a combination of superior ammunition and the very effective Leo armour. The Leos in our experiment were able to soak up several sabot rounds before being destroyed, while if the Chally was hit on the turret, it would at least suffer serious damage and possibly be killed outright.

Unfortunately, the thread got somewhat derailed by Assassin banging on about how a properly trained crew would not allow themselves to get into that situation.

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Nah mate, from what I understood from some of the chaps who worked for VDS who posted on Tanknet (now presumably sadly redundant) it just stood for 'Export'.

No problem, I dont take any offense and being a celt probably post more aggressively than it warranted. Suffice to say Challenger2 is a LOT more effective than people will believe. The firecontrol for example is a lot more accurate than is modelled on steel beasts. Not an easy thing to model when its controlled by an upgraded games console controller I guess. Suffice to say when you put the crosshair over the target, laze and select aided lay, it should be no more inaccurate than a Leopard2s fire control.

I think time to load in my view is erroneous. Yes Challenger1 and 2 (and Chieftain) took longer to load than other western tanks. But a good crew is not going to take more than a second extra, and if you are in a situation when a second matters, then very shortly you are going to be overrun. I think gun penetration is more important, and L30 in my view has consistently been undersold. But hey, that's just my view.

Side turret damage, yeah thats probably right, it would probably end up with the tank killed. But bear in mind you do have Leopard 2A5 and 2A6 in the game, both with turret side uparmour. Challenger2 is just the version sent in 2003 to the Gulf. Its NOT the latest version with the side armour fitted to the turret which would deflect such hits.

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Its a red herring IMHO. For one thing the incident that occured in 2003, when the Iraqi Army managed to immobilise a Challenger 2 for several hours (it may have been as long as a day) there was as I far as I know, no penetration of the crew compartment here. As they were plinking away all day with RPGs and Milan at it, you would have expected it to go through here, but I gather it didnt, even though the optics were destroyed by it. I gather a Milan (or I guess it may have been something like an AT4) did go through the turret front near the mantlet, which had no further effect than some minor debris entering the crew compartment. I dont think any of the crew suffered more than superficial injuries from it, and the tank was operational 24 hours later which points to only very superficial damage.

Note that there is an uparmour pack to the drivers position (on the hull glacis_ on Challenger1 which reduced the size of the area that could be hit. That wasnt even fitted on Challenger2 in 2003 as far as Im aware, which reflects the point that it would be a very lucky shot indeed to hit he vehicle there, particularly at ranges above point blank. I think its a non issue myself, at least its never presented itself as an issue even when the tank has been engaged point blank by missile and even tank gun fire.

Note that the turret front was judged to have some of the finest armour in Nato when it entered service. Its not really surprising, MOD had something like 30 odd years of development of Burlington/Chobham/Dorchester before they bolted it onto Challenger2. Maybe German penetrator design has moved on enough to make it possible to penetrate it, but if so I find it surprising. It should be up near M1A2 levels in the turret front at least, and they skimped on armour elsewhere to do it.

Where it WAS vulnerable was the hull front, which was judged as long ago as 1991 when Challenger1 got an armour pack on the hull front, to be vulnerable. The prototype challenger2 in Bovington is only 30mm steel in this area, and possibly the line tanks were not any different. They are now, the reactive armour block (which got penetrated by an Iraqi IED of Iranian manufacture) got replaced by a solid slab of dorchester bolted onto the front. Again, this is not the version modelled as far as I recall (its been a while since I had SB installed) so likely this area in the sim should be vulnerable when not hull down.

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Guest Killjoy

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Tjay, I may have been alittle harsh about what I said to the VU and I apologize for it. But dont sit here and tell someone that a vehicle is not very good here on SB when you can make it just as good as the others vehicles from crewing it correctly.

Unfortunately, the thread got somewhat derailed by Assassin banging on about how a properly trained crew would not allow themselves to get into that situation.

It looks like its part of the toe reactive armour, but in fact its not, its bolted on seperately from it underneath. It raise the armour in front of the driver by a few inches, not much but then as pointed out, he really needs to see where he is going....

The shot below shows the current armour standard on the bow, and shows the bolts where the uparmour around the driver position would bolt on (its not present here).

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Challenger2E was originally called Desert Challenger, which is why it was painted sand. It was not I believe built FOR the Greek Competition. It was built to get orders in the Middle East (presumably Kuwait and Saudi) which were not forthcoming. I think it only got entered in the greek tank competition because that was the last place it could get orders. With nobody making bagged charges for it and costing over the odds over Leopard2, it was never going to sell. It perhaps says less about that tank, than the ability of British industry in the 2000s to sell anything due to the economy overheating. A problem the Greeks latterly had as well....

C2E was used during the trials because it represented the most enhanced export version ever made. The same thing applied for the Leo2S and Trop' (tropicalised Leclerc), and maybe for the three others.

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C2E was used during the trials because it represented the most enhanced export version ever made. The same thing applied for the Leo2S and Trop' (tropicalised Leclerc), and maybe for the three others.

I dont disagree, but the point im making is that Challenger2E existed long before the Greek tank competition came along. In fact, Im sure ive seen it in Military Modelling magazine in the mid 90s, and in fact I found one reference online that claimed it had been built as early as 1992. So it would appear it was not built specifically for the Greeks, it would appear it was more a general export model featuring a long list of items that could have been made available on an export model.

No problem Hoggy. I actually had some very good ones I took of the full uparmour kit at the 2006 Bovington show, and lost them all in a hard drive crash. Note to self, always backup.....

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This is from a 'DEFE 70.90 The effects of the new soviet tank on FSAPDS development for Chieftain and MBT80' and list figures for a prototype L23 round fired out of L11 in various conditions and tempertures. MOD own figures I may add.

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Imho, penetration figures for challenger ammunition should be more along these lines:

L15: 360mm

L23A1: 450-500mm

CHARM1: 500-550mm

CHARM3: 600-650mm

Yeah, that seems reasonable actually. Ive actually seen a reference to 50mm above that last figure for L27, but Im uncertain of the veracity of it. I only give it any credence due to the respect I have for the chap who suggested it to me.

650mm seems a popular number cited on tanknet and it seems reasonable. 70s MOD documents cite T72 follow on as the next one to be the borne in mind when developing L30, and it seems likely it could do that (which is presumably why they dropped the 110mm smoothbore and went with a 120mm rifle again )T90, well ive got my doubts if L27 could defeat that reliably .Though L28 was reputed to give superior performance. No idea how far they got with that though, ive not heard of it for a long time unless they rebranded it as L23A2.

Re Armour, Ive got a feeling that it MAY have been the GPS that the Milan round went through. Id have to check on that in an Ebook that features the incident, though again, your figures would fit with that.

Nils, I lost your email a couple of hard drive crashes back, Ill send you mine via message. Mines the same as it was if you still have it.

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Many people assume Challenger2 is slow to accelerate from the footage from Basra, but in fact Challengers there operated on USMC AVGAS, which didnt do the engine a lot of good, and slowed acceleration. Challengers in full uparmour at Bovington accelerate rather better, its not an abrams and never will be, but for its weight its good. One has to be careful talking about speed an acceleration. Centurion in theory was rather faster than Conqueror. Cross country Conqueror, despite being much heavier, turned out to be just as fast. I think they Hydrogas suspension when running across rough terrain could be highly effective.

Ugh, this issue again. Perhaps you are not so much contesting the automotive performance of the uparmored CR2 here, but just to clear up and air out the issue here again: as I said a few times before, there isn't much to contest here, it is simple math. The vehicle's overall known weight versus its known horsepower = it's power to weight ratio which determines its acceleration. Pretty simple and standard calculatio really. As far as hydroneumatic suspension goes, the CR2 has the best suspension data of any tank in SB because of that aspect (it essentially has perfect suspension in SB). We have to keep in mind too that the map theme's bumpiness level directly determines the overall cross country speeds of all tanks in a scenario -- we have played quite a few desert scenarios where the desert themes are not an extremely bumpy woodland type and the CR2 can achieve pretty good acceleration in said environment. So really, the performance of the CR2's mobility in SB depends on several conditions, some of which can be controlled by the scenario or map designer.

Now we can post videos of CR2s on roads that are accelerating quickly, which are the non-armored versions in the videos I have seen, but then it can also be pointed out that the CR2 does have good acceleration and speed on roads in SB as well. Many of us would like to continue to speculate/wish/hope/pray that the real Challenger 2 is a speedier tank (this is why we checked our numbers several times), but the numbers from Jane's just don't quite add up that way (as I said it is simple math here). If this is to be contributed to simulation versus real life, something which can't possibly be contested and also something that really can't be proven either way, then so be it --but I believe this is wishful thinking. Maybe we should of modeled the non-uparmored version though. That said, "fast" and "slow" are both relative terms that we all use very loosely. The CR2 has a blazing speed over the Centurion and Chieftain.

As for your other point about ammo, we welcome more information to correct any misunderstandings/miscalculations. I am sure you can agree that this data isn't quite easy to come by and we do the best with what known data we have. Please send any source information to Ssnake on the subject (his email is: ssnake (at) esimgames [dot] com).

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Imho, penetration figures for challenger ammunition should be more along these lines:

L15: 360mm

L23A1: 450-500mm

CHARM1: 500-550mm

CHARM3: 600-650mm

That would seem to bear out UKA's experience with trying to push a single CR2 up to a hull down position facing 4 Leos. The tank was disabled/destroyed BEFORE the TOGS line of sight cleared the grass. So it was probably due to a hit on the top of the turret.

What was interesting is that when we pushed 12 tanks up simultaneously, the Leo AI seemed to be intimidated or confused by the plethora of targets. Their accuracy decreased markedly to the extent that the Challies could get into their firing positions, fire two rounds each and back down without suffering any casualties. I didn't realise that AI behaviour was that sophisticated. But it's definitely worth knowing.

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Ugh, not this issue again. As I said many times before, this one really is a no brainer and there isn't much to contest here, it is simple math. The vehicle's overall known weight versus its known horsepower = it's power to weight ratio which determines its acceleration. Pretty simple really. As far as hydroneumatic suspension goes, the CR2 has the best suspension data of any tank in SB because of that aspect.

Now we can post videos of CR2s on roads that are accelerating quickly, which are the non-armored versions, but then it can also be pointed out that the CR2 does have good acceleration and speed on roads in SB as well. We can also continue to speculate/wish/hope/pray that the real Challenger 2 is some sort of speedy tank, but the numbers from Jane's just don't quite add up that way (as I said it is simple math here). If this is to be contributed to simulation versus real life, something which can't possibly be contested and also something that really can't be proven either way, then so be it but I believe this is wishful thinking. Maybe we should of modeled the non-uparmored version though.

As for your other point about ammo, we welcome more information to correct any misunderstandings. Please send any source information to Ssnake on the subject.

Um, the misunderstanding is yours I think. I dont believe I suggested Esim GOT the acceleration wrong, or at least it wasnt evident in the last version I had. The basic mobility of it I was happy with. It was more a comment based on earlier on the thread (which I may have misread) which seemed to be that the real thing wasn't very mobile. I see you agree with me on this point.

Mobility isnt the same as speed of course. For example, a Centurion, hard though it is to believe, is actually more mobile over soft ground than an Abrams. The reason being the Abrams has an automatic transmission which means it can bog down, whereas the Centurion has a manual box and just go to low gear. That was demonstrated many times in DS1. Not having tried the sim for a while, Im not sure if simulating different drivetrains on different terrain has been achieved or not, but it would be interesting to put on the list at some point I would think.

Look on the bright side, at least I dont keep going on about implementing working suspension.